Apparatus and methods for notification of a party in a telephone conference

ABSTRACT

Systems, methods, and machine-readable articles of manufacture enable private notification of a participant in a telephone conference. In representative embodiments, a system receives a telephone call intended for a first conference participant, generates an informative announcement containing information regarding the call, mixes the informative announcement with the conference audio, and privately plays the mixed audio to the first participant. In other representative embodiments, the system concurrently generates a non-informative announcement, mixes the non-informative announcement with the conference audio, and plays the second mixed audio to the other conference participant or participants. In this way, the first participant is notified of the incoming call while simultaneously listening to the conference audio, and the information regarding the call is not shared with the other conference participant or participants.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S.patent application Ser. No. 13/283,533, entitled Apparatus and Methodfor Notification of a Party in a Telephone Conference, now allowed;which is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/988,809, entitled Apparatus and Method forNotification of a Party in a Telephone Conference, now U.S. Pat. No.8,072,909.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to telecommunication systems andmethods, and, more particularly, to telephone call management systemsand methods for announcing telephone calls.

BACKGROUND

Even with the relatively recent proliferation of email, instantmessaging, and similar communication technologies, telephone servicesremain important to an average person or business. Indeed, it appearsthat the number of individual telephone lines in use is constantlyincreasing. The number and sophistication of feature functions availablefrom both telephone systems and telephone service providers alsocontinue to increase. Call answering, voice messaging, and automatedattendant (“auto attendant”) are some of the more popular featurefunctions commonly offered by telephone systems and service providers.

An auto attendant system typically answers the incoming calls, greetsthe callers, and transfers the calls to selected extensions. Some autoattendant systems interact with the callers using, for example, dualtone multi-frequency (DTMF or touch-tone) key input. Other autoattendant systems accept voice input, which they process using automaticspeech recognition capabilities. Still other systems can receive andprocess both DTMF and voice input. Representative auto attendant systemsof all three types can support call screening. For example, an autoattendant system can identify the telephone number from which the calloriginated using caller ID information carried by the call, and displaythe number and a name associated with the number to the called person.The system can also request a caller to identify himself (or herself, asthe case may be), record the caller's response, and play the response tothe called person. In either case, the called person can accept thecall, reject the call, or add the call to a telephone conferencesession.

Announcement of the new call can be made through the handset, headset,or loudspeaker of the telephone device used by the called person. Thistechnique is convenient if the called person is engaged in an existingtelephone conference session when the new call comes in. Privacyconcerns, however, limit usefulness of such announcements if confereesother than the called person can hear the announcements. To prevent allconferees from hearing the announcements intended for one of theconferees, the connection of the called person-conferee to the telephoneconference can be temporarily interrupted during the announcement.Unfortunately, this method of announcing new calls can disrupt theconference. The importance of the disruption varies, depending, forexample, on the length of the announcement, and on whether the calledperson was speaking at the time of the disruption. Furthermore, theother conferees may be left with the impression that the called personhas left the conference, and the called party can miss importantconversation that takes place during the announcement. If the conferenceis being recorded, the disruptions may also interfere with the recordingprocess.

It would be desirable to avoid such disruptions when making privateinformative audio announcements to a participant in a telephoneconference. It would also be desirable not to create an impression thatthe participant receiving the announcement has left the conferenceduring such announcements. It would further be desirable not to causethe participant receiving the announcement to miss the conferenceconversation that takes place during the announcement. Still further, itwould be desirable to facilitate the process of recording the conferencewhile enabling private notification of various conferees.

SUMMARY

A need thus exists for apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacturecapable of providing a private, customizable audio announcement to aperson who is already connected to a two-party or multi-party telephoneconference with one or more other conferees, while reducing disruptionof the telephone conference. A need also exists for apparatus andmethods capable of providing such announcement to the person whilemaking the announcement transparent to other conferees, or whileproviding a second announcement to the other conferees. A further needexists for apparatus and methods capable of providing such announcementto the person while simultaneously providing to the person the audiosignal from the conference. Still another need exists for apparatus andmethods capable of providing such announcement to the person whileseamlessly recording the conference.

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods, apparatus,and articles of manufacture that satisfy one or more of these needs. Insome embodiments, the invention herein disclosed involves integration ofexisting telephony hardware and software application program interfaces(APIs) with an existing voice recognition engine and its associated API.An integration software layer provides the implementation and process ofthe invention in these embodiments.

In one exemplary embodiment, the invention herein disclosed is a methodof providing information to a first conferee participating in atelephone conference with at least one second conferee. In accordancewith this method, a first connection that provides audio data generatedby the at least one second conferee to the first conferee is severed. Atthe same time, the audio data generated by the at least one secondconferee is received, for example, through a first alternativeconnection such as an audio buffer. The received audio data is mixed(i.e., combined) with a first announcement to obtain first mixed audiodata. The first mixed audio data is provided to the first conferee inreal time after severing the first connection, and the audio datagenerated by the first conferee is provided to the at least one secondconferee in real time after severing the first connection.

The method may further include severing a second connection thatprovides audio data generated by the first conferee to the at least onesecond conferee, and mixing a second announcement with the audio datagenerated by the first conferee (received, e.g., through a secondalternative connection which may include an audio buffer) to obtainsecond mixed audio data. The second mixed audio data is then provided tothe at least one second conferee in real time after severing the secondconnection.

The first announcement may include information relating to a telephonecall directed to the first telephone device. For example, theannouncement may include the name, number, and a short message from thecaller. This information is provided to the first conferee privately;the second conferee(s) do(es) not hear the first announcement. The firstannouncement may also include notification regarding (1) emergencies,e.g., natural disasters, (2) arrival of messages meeting predeterminedcriteria, e.g., facsimiles or email of predefined importance, (3) stocktrades, (4) financial events, e.g. price fluctuations, and (4) similarevents.

These and other features and aspects of the present invention will bebetter understood with reference to the following description, drawings,and appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram of a call management system capableof providing private announcement to a conferee participating in atelephone conference, in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a process flow diagram illustrating selected steps of aprocess for providing private announcement regarding an incomingtelephone call to a conferee during a telephone conference, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a high-level block diagram of another call management systemcapable of providing private announcement to a conferee participating ina telephone conference, in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4A is a high-level block diagram of a call management systemcapable of providing private announcement to a conferee participating ina multi-party telephone conference, with the system being configured ina pre-announcement state; and

FIG. 4B is a high-level block diagram of the call management system ofFIG. 4A configured in an announcement delivery state.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In this document, the words “embodiment” and “variant” refer toparticular apparatus or process, and not necessarily to the sameapparatus or process. Thus, “one embodiment” (or a similar expression)used in one place or context can refer to a particular apparatus orprocess; the same or a similar expression in a different place can referto a different apparatus or process. The expression “alternativeembodiment” and similar phrases are used to indicate one of a number ofdifferent possible embodiments. The number of potential embodiments isnot necessarily limited to two or any other quantity. The word“subscriber” signifies a person who can receive a call processed by acall management system. Generally, a subscriber has a preexistingassociation with the system. For example, a subscriber may be anemployee of an organization using the call management system. A “caller”is a person who places a telephone call received by the call managementsystem. The call can be placed from a location external to the callmanagement system, or from a location served by the system, such as atelephone extension connected to the system. Note that a “caller” mayalso be a “subscriber.” The words “couple,” “connect,” and similarexpressions with their inflectional morphemes do not necessarily importan immediate or direct connection, but include connections throughmediate elements within their meaning. The word “conference” refers to atelephone conference between two or more participating conferees. A“two-party conference” means a conference between two participatingconferees. A “multi-party conference” means a conference with at leastthree participating conferees. A “conferee” is a person participating ina conference, which can be a two- or a multi-party conference. Aconferee may (but need not) be a caller or a subscriber. The scope andspirit of the invention should not be construed as strictly limited toany of these definitions, or to the specific examples mentioned herein.

The invention herein disclosed can be implemented in a call managementsystem, such as the call management systems described in a relatedpatent application entitled APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PERSONALIZED CALLACKNOWLEDGMENT, filed on Sep. 2, 2004, Ser. No. 10/932,745, alsoassigned to the assignee of the present invention. This relatedapplication is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Reference will now be made in detail to several embodiments of theinvention that are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Same orsimilar reference numerals may be used in the drawings and thedescription to refer to the same or like apparatus elements and methodsteps. The drawings are in simplified form, not to scale, and omitapparatus elements and method steps that can be added to the describedsystems and methods, while including certain optional elements andsteps.

FIG. 1 illustrates, in a high-level block diagram manner, a callmanagement system 100 capable of providing private notification to afirst conferee at a telephone device 105. The telephone device 105 isconnected to a computer telephony device 110, for example, a Dialogic®computer telephony board available from Intel corporation. Similarly, asecond conferee at a telephone device 115 is connected to a computertelephony device 120. The computer telephony device 120 can be provided,for example, by the same computer telephony board as the board thathosts the device 110, or by another computer telephony board. Operationof the computer telephony devices 110 and 120 is controlled byapplication code stored in channel 1 and channel 2 application codememories 111 and 121, respectively. The code may be loaded from amachine-readable medium, such as a CD, DVD, flash memory, floppy or harddrive, or a similar memory or storage device.

As described above, the computer telephony devices 110 and 120 may beconventional devices designed for use with switched circuit telephonesystems. Additionally, the devices 110 and 120 may be virtual devicesand may include interfaces capable of using, for example, InternetProtocol (IP), such as Voice over IP (VoIP), or other packet switchingnetwork technology to transfer audio data between conferenceparticipants. In some non-limiting embodiments, properties of thecomputer telephony devices 110 and 120 are as follows:

The devices simultaneously provide access to receive and transmit audiostreams of individual channels.

The devices are capable of being coupled (patched) to each other and toother telephony devices. Each device can then hear (receive) audio datafrom telephones coupled to other computer telephony devices to which thedevice is coupled. In this mode, the device allows access to the audiostream spoken by a user on the telephone coupled with the device.

The telephone devices 105 and 115 (e.g., conventional, cordless, orwireless telephones) can be connected to their respective computertelephony devices 110 and 120 without any intermediate devices; this maythe case if the telephone devices 105 and 115 are part of the system 100and are located on the same or neighboring premises as the system 100.In a variant of this embodiment, one or both of the telephone devices105 and 115 are part of the system 100, but are remote to each other. Inanother variant, one or both telephone devices 105 and 115 are connectedto their respective computer telephony devices via a telephone networkand appropriate network interfaces, such as a switched telephone networkand loop start interfaces, or an Internet Protocol-based (IP-based)packet network with voice over IP (VoIP) trunk interfaces. Othernetworks, for example, intranets, extranets, virtual private networks(VPNs), local area network (LANs), wide area network (WANs), enterprisenetworks, private switched networks, and connection-oriented networkscan also be used to connect the telephone devices 105 and 115 to thecomputer telephony devices 110 and 120.

An audio bus board 125 provides a communication medium forinterconnecting the computer telephony devices 110 and 120. In theillustrated embodiment, the audio bus board 125 is an SCBus-compatibleboard supporting a framework for patching/connecting together audiochannels. (The telephone call patching/connecting capability of theboard 125 and the devices 110 and 120 will be referred to as the“patching framework.”) The SCBus is a real-time, high speed, timedivision multiplexed (TDM) communications bus that provides 1024 timeslots (channels) capable of carrying digital information betweenSCBus-compatible devices. In various embodiments, other communicationmedia capable of supporting the patching framework of digital channelsare used for interconnecting the computer telephony devices 110 and 120,including H.100-compatible buses, packet switching interconnections, andother interconnection means. In one embodiment, the audio bus boardincludes multiplexing software that receives audio from one computertelephony device and redirects the audio to another computer telephonydevice, using IP/Packet Switching framework. An example of suchframework is a Dialogic® Host Media Processing system, which is alsoavailable from Intel Inc. It should be noted that the invention need notbe construed as limited to implementations based on a specific bus orsoftware.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, the audio bus board 125 includes half duplexdedicated channels 126 and 127. The channel 126 carries audio data fromthe computer telephony device 110 to the computer telephony device 120;the channel 127 carries audio data in the opposite direction betweenthese two devices. Thus, with respect to the device 110, the channel 126is a transmit channel, while the channel 127 is a receive or “listen”channel; with respect to the device 120, the channel 127 is a transmitchannel, while the channel 126 is a receive channel.

Reference numerals 135 and 140 designate fast audio buffers associatedwith the computer telephony devices 110 and 120, respectively. In theillustrated embodiment, each fast audio buffer 135 and 140 is a memorybuffer that uses hardware level synchronization via an operating systemlevel API. It contains its own thread of execution dedicated todistributing and, possibly, mixing audio data. The audio data is dumpedto the fast audio buffers via connections 136 and 141, from one of thedevice driver level threads of the computer telephony device associatedwith the buffers, i.e., device 110 driver level thread in case of thebuffer 135, and device 120 driver level thread in case of the buffer140. The audio data can be provided to the buffer 135 in parallel(simultaneously) with the same audio data feeding into the channel 126via a connection 112. From the buffer 135, the audio data is madeavailable, over a connection 137, to an automatic speech recognition(ASR) module 145. Similarly, the audio data can be provided to thebuffer 140 in parallel with the same audio data feeding into the channel127 via a connection 122. From the buffer 140, the audio data is madeavailable over a connection 142 to an automatic speech recognitionmodule 150.

The buffers 135/140 and the ASR modules 145/150 may be incorporated intothe computer telephony devices with which they are associated, i.e., thebuffer 135 and the ASR module 145 may reside on the device 110, and thebuffer 140 and the ASR module 150 may reside on the device 120.Alternatively the buffers and/or the ASR modules may be locatedelsewhere within the system 100.

Prior to generation of an announcement to the first conferee at thetelephone device 105, the system 100 operates as follows. Audio datafrom the each conferee leaves the conferee's respective computertelephony device (110 or 120) simultaneously via two separate routes.First, the audio is streamed from an audio streaming API of theconferee's computer telephony device 110 to the buffer 135, eventuallymaking its way to the ASR module 145 of the same channel. Similarly,audio data from the second conferee is streamed to the buffer 140 usingan audio streaming API of the device 120, eventually making its way tothe ASR module 150 of the same channel. The audio data from bothconferees is recorded via the respective computer telephony boards'software APIs. The second route for each audio data stream is providedby binding the two computer telephony devices 110 and 120 to each otherin a full duplex connection via the patching framework of the audio busboard 125, which enables communication via the channels 126 and 127. Thechannels 126 and 127 carry the audio data of each conferee to thecomputer telephony device of the other conferee, thus allowing theconferees to hear each other.

Speech recognition can be employed to enable one or both conferees tobreak the conference patch at any time during the conference call. Theconference can be broken, for example, if the ASR detects a keyword orkey phrase (e.g., “leave conference”) uttered by either party involvedin the conference.

An informative announcement generator block 155 is capable of generatingan announcement to the first conferee. For example, the announcementgenerated for the first conferee may contain a notification of anincoming telephone call intended for the first conferee, and aninformative message relating to the incoming telephone call, such as thetelephone number and name of the caller.

A non-informative announcement generator block 170 is capable ofgenerating an announcement for the second conferee. In one embodiment,the notification of the second conferee does not include any informationabout the call, such as the information given to the first conferee (towhom the call is directed). For example, the announcement generated forthe second conferee may be a simple jingle, or a notification that thefirst conferee has been temporarily “interrupted,” without giving areason for the temporary interruption.

The announcement generator blocks 155 and 170 are connected,respectively, to audio mixers 160 and 165. The audio mixer 160 is alsocoupled to the fast buffer 140 through a first partner channel audiobuffer 180, while the audio mixer 165 is also coupled to the fast buffer135 through a second partner channel audio buffer 175. Thus, each of theaudio mixers 160 and 165 can receive both (1) an announcement generatedby one of the announcement generator blocks (block 155 in case of themixer 160, and block 170 in case of the mixer 165), and (2) the audiofrom a partner channel fast buffer (fast buffer 140 in case of the mixer160, and fast buffer 135 in case of the mixer 165). Each mixer iscapable of combining the two received audio streams and providing thecombined audio to the computer telephony device associated with themixer, as is illustrated in FIG. 1. Each mixed audio stream is then sentto the telephone device connected to the computer telephony deviceassociated with the mixer. This may be done, for example, via thecomputer telephony device's software API.

After an incoming call intended for the first conferee is identified,the state of the system 100 is modified for the purpose of presentingthe call. Information relating to the call or the caller is determinedusing, for example, automatic number identification (ANI), dialed numberidentification system (DNIS), direct inward dial (DID), callerself-identification provided in response to an auto attendant query, orother proprietary or non-proprietary means. This information is thentranslated into an informative announcement. For example, (1) thetelephone number of the caller can be translated into the informativemessage using an audio generator capable of playing back recorded audioof digits, (2) the caller's name can be played using a text-to-speechconverter, or (3) the caller's self-identification can be appended to ajingle and an introductory phrase, such as “ . . . is calling.” Theinformative announcement is generated by the informative announcementgenerator block 155. At the same time, a non-informative announcement isgenerated by the non-informative announcement generator block 170.

It should be noted that the announcement generated by the block 170 is“non-informative” in the sense that it is not identical to and does notcarry all the information that is included in the informativeannouncement generated by the block 155. The non-informativeannouncement generated by the block 170 may nevertheless containinformation useful to the second conferee.

When the messages are ready to be played to the conferees, the patch(connections) between the two computer telephony devices 110 and 120created by the channels 126 and 127 is severed, and conference audio,together with the informative and non-informative announcements, isrerouted and played in real time to the first and second conferees. Inthis embodiment, the audio data from the first conferee is now streamedto the second conferee through the buffers 135 and 175, and the mixer165; the audio data from the second conferee is streamed to the firstconferee through the buffers 140 and 180, and the mixer 160. Reroutingof the audio streams can be achieved, for example, using full duplexaudio processing capabilities present on the computer telephony devices110 and 120, namely the ability to perform simultaneous play (sendingaudio) and record (receiving audio) on the ports connected to thetelephone devices 105 and 115.

Note that “severing” the patch does not necessarily imply that thechannels 126 and 127 are released, or that the audio data from theconferees no longer travels through these channels. The patch is severedin the sense that the audio data played to the conferees is no longerreceived from the channels 126 and 127. Of course, the patch may also besevered simply by not sending the audio data through the channels.

In one variant of the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1, the audiogenerated by the first conferee is interrupted during the announcements.This feature may be made dependent on the status of the telephone device105. For example, if the first conferee is using a full duplexspeakerphone, the audio generated by the first conferee may beinterrupted during the informative announcement, but not otherwise.Similarly, the audio from the first conferee may be interrupted duringthe informative announcement if the audio is below a predefinedthreshold, e.g., when the first conferee is not speaking.

Severing the patch between the computer telephony devices 110 and 120may be done substantially simultaneously with beginning of playing themixed audio streams from the mixers 160 and 165. The volume of eachmixed audio stream is adjusted so that the audio signal corresponding tothe conference closely approximates the volume of the conference audioprovided to the associated telephone device 105/115 before the patch issevered. Perceptible audio glitching (a hiccup or spurious audio signal)during the transition can therefore be reduced or eliminated altogether.The jingle and/or the introductory phrase in the announcement(s) canalso help mask the glitching. Furthermore, glitching can be reduced bycaching a small section of the recorded audio data in order to minimizethe loss of any audio data when the conference patch is broken and audiois first transferred between the conferees via the mixers 160/165.

Thus, during the announcements the audio from each telephone device inthe conference is transmitted to its partner port via the invention'ssoftware implementation. Separate, customized audio announcements can beplayed to each conferee. This allows a private announcement, forexample, of the caller's identity, to be played only to one party in theconference, while simultaneously allowing the conference audio from theother party or parties to be heard by each conferee.

In some embodiments, the firmware buffers on the computer telephonydevices 110 and 120 are reduced during the announcements. In onespecific embodiment that uses an audio stream rate of 8,000 bytes persecond, the buffers are reduced to 1024 bytes.

After the announcements, the playing of audio through the buffers andmixers (i.e., through elements 160, 165, 175, and 180) is stopped, andthe connections via the patching framework of the board 125 and thecomputer telephony devices 110 and 120 are restored. Note that therestored connections may use the same audio bus board channels as wereused before the connections were severed. Alternatively, one or more ofthe restored connections may use different channels. The system 100 thenresumes its operation in substantially the same way as it was operatingbefore the incoming call was received. In this way, the first confereehas been notified regarding the oncoming telephone call in a hands-freeand vision-free mode, while maintaining a two-party conference andpreserving privacy of the information in the notification.

The first conferee may issue a command to the system 100 in order toexit the conference and accept the incoming call, or add the call to theconference. This may be done either during or after the announcement ofthe call. In some embodiments, for example, the first conferee can issuea voice command to the system 100. The command is interpreted by the ASRmodule 145, and the system 100 then performs additional patching inaccordance with the command.

FIG. 2 is a process flow diagram illustrating selected steps of aprocess 200 for providing announcement to a conferee during aconference. Although the process steps are described serially, certainsteps can be performed by separate elements in conjunction or inparallel, asynchronously or synchronously, in a pipelined manner, orotherwise. There is no particular requirement that the steps beperformed in the same order in which this description lists them, exceptwhere explicitly so indicated or otherwise made clear from the context.Furthermore, not every illustrated step is required in every embodimentin accordance with the invention, while some steps that have not beenspecifically illustrated may be desirable or necessary in someembodiments in accordance with the invention.

At a flow point 205, a call management system (such as the system 100)is maintaining a connection between a first conferee and a secondconferee using a patching framework. The system 100 is also bufferingthe audio output of the conferees (via the buffers 135 and 140), andrecording the audio output of the conferees. At step 210, the callmanagement system receives an incoming call intended for the firstconferee. At step 215, the system identifies the first conferee as theperson to whom the call is directed. For example, if the first confereehas a specific telephone number that the caller has dialed, the systemcan identify the first conferee from the telephone number. The systemcan also ask the caller (e.g., using interactive voice responsecapability) to key in the extension that the caller wishes to reach, andthen identify the first conferee from the keyed digits. In anothervariant, the system asks the caller to speak the name of the person whomthe caller wishes to reach, and uses automatic speech recognition tomatch the spoken name to stored grammar of the first conferee's name.

At step 220, the system determines call information relating to thecall. In some embodiments, the information helps the first conferee (oranother called person) to make an informed decision whether to take thecall, acknowledge the call, or reject the call. For example, theinformation may include the originating telephone number obtained froman ANI module. The information may also include the caller's nameprovided by the caller in response to a request generated by the callmanagement system. Further, the system may attempt to identify thecaller by matching the caller's voice print to voice prints of callersknown to call the first conferee, or from another caller list availableto the system. The caller's voice print may be obtained, for example,when the caller identifies the first conferee or issues voice commandsto the system.

At step 225, the system generates an informative announcement for thefirst conferee and a non-informative announcement for the secondconferee.

At step 230, the system severs the patch between the conferees, andsimultaneously begins to play the audio output by each conferee to theother conferee through an alternative path that includes an audio mixer(160, 165) and buffer with an ability do distribute data to a differentdestinations at the same time (135, 140).

At step 235, the audio played to the first conferee is mixed with theaudio of the informative announcement, and the audio played to thesecond conferee is mixed with the audio of the non-informativeannouncement.

At step 240, both announcements conclude and the patching framework isreestablished. At the same time, the playing of audio through the mixersand butters is terminated.

At a flow point 245, the conference is restored to its pre-announcementstate, and the system stands ready to receive verbal (or other) commandsfrom the conferees and act upon the commands. For example, the firstconferee may utter a verbal command to accept the incoming call andleave the conference, or to patch the incoming call to the conference.

Note that the verbal command may be uttered and received by the systemearlier, for example, during performance of step 235, as audio is stillbeing transmitted to the ASR module associated with a particularchannel.

In embodiments where the non-informative announcement is not made to thesecond conferee, the non-informative announcement need not be generatedand there is no need to include the block 170 and the mixer 165 in thecall management system 100. This is illustrated in FIG. 3. Duringnotification of the first conferee, the second conferee may remainpatched to the first conferee through the patching framework of thechannel 126 of the audio bus board 125 and the computer telephonydevices 110 and 120. Here, the patching framework connections aresevered with respect to the audio data carried from the device 120 tothe device 110 by the channel 127; the connections remain intact withrespect to the audio data carried by the channel 126 in the oppositedirection. The audio data from the device 120 is mixed together with theannouncement generated by the informative announcement generator block155 and provided to the first conferee at the telephone device 105,substantially in the same way as this is done in the system 100 of FIG.1.

The methods and systems described in this document need not be limitedto operation in a two-party conference. FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate, in ahigh-level block diagram manner, operation of a call management system400 capable of providing private notification to a first conferee at atelephone device 105 participating in a multi-party conference. On theside of the telephone device 105 and computer telephony device 110, theoperation of the system 400 is similar to that of the system 100 ofFIG. 1. Note, however, that FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate some additionaldetails of the computer telephony device 110 that were not shown inFIG. 1. The additional details include a media resource 113 and a loopstart interface 114. The loop start interface 114, which may be adigital interface, enables the computer telephony device 110 to maintaina full duplex connection to the first conferee at the telephone device105. The media resource 113 enables the device 110 to record and playreceived audio.

In the system 400, a computer telephony device 420 implements aconference resource to enable conferencing of the first conferee at thetelephone device 105 with two or more additional conferees. (Theadditional conferees are not shown for simplicity.) Operation of thedevice 420 is controlled by application code stored in an applicationcode memory 421. In the embodiment illustrated in FIGS. 4A and 4B, theaudio bus board 125 also connects the computer telephony device 420 tothe additional conferees using channel 127 (which acts as a commonconference output channel in this embodiment) and dedicated inputchannels 128 and 129, one dedicated input channel per conferee. Thededicated input channels carry audio data generated by the additionalconferees to the conference resource of the computer telephony device420. The channel 126 carries audio data from the first conferee at thetelephone device 105 to the conference resource on the computertelephony device 420.

As illustrated in FIG. 4A, prior to generation of an announcement to thefirst conferee the conference resource combines the audio data receivedfrom the additional conferees with the audio data received from thefirst conferee. The conference resource then distributes the resultingcombined audio stream to all the conferees, including the firstconferee, using the common conference output channel 127. The loop startinterface 114 receives the combined audio stream of the conference fromthe channel 127, and plays the audio embedded in the stream to the firstconferee at the telephone device 105. The loop start interface 114further receives the audio generated by the first conferee, digitizes,encodes, and otherwise formats the audio for transmission, and transmitsthe resulting audio stream to the conference resource at the device 120over the channel 126. The media resource 113 also listens to the cleanaudio of the first conferee transmitted on the channel 126, and sendsthe audio to the audio buffer 135.

Note that in some variants of the embodiment of FIGS. 4A and 4B, theconference resource combines together the audio of only selectedconferees to generate the combined audio stream. For example, audio oftwo conferees with highest volumes can be mixed to generate the combinedaudio stream.

After an incoming call intended for the first conferee is identified,the state of the system 400 is modified for the purpose of presentingthe call. The modified state of the system 400 is illustrated in FIG.4B. Information relating to the call or the caller is determined using,for example, techniques described above in relation to the system 100 ofFIG. 1. An informative announcement generator block 155 translates thisinformation into an informative announcement. In some variants of thisembodiment, a non-informative announcement for the other conferees isgenerated concurrently with generation of the informative announcement.

When the informative announcement is ready to be played to the firstconferee, the connection via the patching framework is modified so thatthe audio stream of the conference transmitted on the channel 127 is nowreceived by the media resource 113. From the media resource 113 theaudio stream of the conference is sent to the audio mixer 160 via thebuffers 135 and 180. The audio mixer 160 also receives the informativeannouncement from the block 155, and combines the informativeannouncement with the conference audio received from the media resource113. The resulting audio stream, which is intended for the firstconferee, is forwarded to the media resource 113. From there, theresulting audio stream is forwarded to the telephone device 105 via achannel 130 of the audio bus board 125 and the loop start interface 114.

As is illustrated in FIG. 4B, the patching framework connections remainunchanged with respect to the audio data carried by the channel 126 fromthe device 110 to the conference resource at the device 420. Thepatching framework also remains unchanged with respect to the audio dataof additional conferees carried to the device 420 by the dedicatedchannels 128 and 129, and the conference audio data carried by thechannel 127 to the additional conferees.

Although the embodiments described above involved announcements ofincoming calls to a conferee, other announcements also fall within thescope of the invention. For example, an external process may beprogrammed to deliver important real-time messages to a system user. Inthis scenario, the identity of the first conferee may be known to thesystem because of the conferee's use of a specific telephone or computertelephony device, or because the conferee has logged into the system.Real-time information may then be implicitly addressed to thatparticular conferee. Examples of real-time information includenotification of natural disasters and other emergencies, arrival ofimportant email and other messages, important stock trades, pricefluctuations, and similar events. Broadcasting and multicastingannouncements also fall within the scope of the invention. In thepresent context, a broadcasting announcement is a system-wideannouncement directed to all system users. A multicast announcement isan announcement directed to a predetermined group of system users, suchas members of a workgroup or a department.

This document describes the inventive apparatus, methods, and articlesof manufacture for private notification of a party in a telephoneconference in considerable detail. This was done for illustrationpurposes only. Neither the specific embodiments of the invention as awhole, nor those of its features limit the general principles underlyingthe invention. The specific features described herein may be used insome embodiments, but not in others, without departure from the spiritand scope of the invention as set forth. Various physical arrangementsof components and various step sequences also fall within the intendedscope of the invention. Furthermore, the invention need not beimplemented in a multi-functional call management and/or auto attendantsystem. Many additional modifications are intended in the foregoingdisclosure, and it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in theart that in some instances some features of the invention will beemployed in the absence of a corresponding use of other features. Theillustrative examples therefore do not define the metes and bounds ofthe invention and the legal protection afforded the invention, whichfunction is carried out by the claims and their equivalents.

We claim:
 1. A telephone system, comprising; a first computer telephonydevice coupled to a first telephone; a second computer telephony devicecoupled to a second telephone; an audio bus coupled to the first andsecond computer telephony devices to provide a patching framework; afirst audio buffer coupled to the second computer telephony device toreceive audio data generated by a conferee at the second telephone; afirst announcement generator configured to generate a first announcementin response to one or more predetermined conditions; and a first mixercoupled to the first announcement generator, the first audio buffer, andthe first computer telephony device to mix the first announcement andthe audio data generated at the second telephone, thereby obtaining afirst mixed audio stream, and providing the first mixed audio stream tothe first telephone via the first computer telephony device; wherein thetelephone system is configured so that the first announcement is notprovided to the second telephone.
 2. A telephone system according toclaim 1, wherein the one or more predetermined conditions comprisereceiving a call directed to the first telephone, wherein the firstannouncement comprises call information obtained from the call.
 3. Atelephone system according to claim 2, wherein the first announcementcomprises at least one item selected from the group consisting of a nameof a person associated with a telephone number from which the calloriginated, and the telephone number from which the call originated. 4.A telephone system according to claim 2, wherein: the second computertelephony device comprises a conference resource configured to provideconferencing services between the first telephone device, the secondtelephone device, and at least one third telephone device.
 5. Atelephone system according to claim 2, further comprising: a secondaudio buffer coupled to the first computer telephony device to receiveaudio data generated at the first telephone; a second announcementgenerator configured to provide a second announcement; and a secondmixer coupled to the second announcement generator, the second audiobuffer, and the second computer telephony device, to mix the secondannouncement and the audio data generated at the first telephone,thereby obtaining a second mixed audio stream, and providing the secondmixed audio stream to the second telephone device via the first computertelephony device, wherein the telephone system is configured so that thesecond announcement is not provided to the first telephone.
 6. Atelephone system according to claim 5, wherein: the second computertelephony device comprises a conference resource configured to provideconferencing services between the first telephone device, the secondtelephone device, and at least one third telephone device, and thesecond mixer is further configured to provide the second mixed audiostream to the at least one third telephone device.
 7. A telephone systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the one or more predetermined conditionscomprise receipt of an electronic message.
 8. A method of providinginformation in a telephone conference between a first conferee and atleast one second conferee, the method comprising steps of: severing afirst connection that provides audio data generated by the at least onesecond conferee to the first conferee; receiving the audio datagenerated by the at least one second conferee; mixing the audio datagenerated by the at least one second conferee with a first announcementto obtain first mixed audio data; providing the first mixed audio datato the first conferee in real time after severing the first connection;and providing audio data generated by the first conferee to the at leastone second conferee in real tune after severing the first connection,wherein the first announcement is not provided to the at least onesecond conferee.
 9. A method according to claim 8, further comprising:severing a second connection that provides audio data generated by thefirst conferee to the at least one second conferee; mixing a secondannouncement with the audio data generated by the first conferee toobtain second mixed audio data; and providing the second mixed audiodata to the at least one second conferee in real time after severing thesecond connection, whereby the second announcement is not provided tothe first conferee.
 10. A method according to claim 9, furthercomprising: receiving a telephone call directed to the first confereeduring the conference; determining call information relating to thecall; and generating the first announcement, wherein the firstannouncement includes at least a portion of the information relating tothe call.
 11. A method according to claim 10, wherein the portion of theinformation relating to the call is excluded from the secondannouncement.
 12. A method according to claim 11, wherein: the step ofdetermining call information comprises determining the telephone numberfrom which the call originated; the step of generating the firstannouncement comprises using an audio generator to translate thetelephone number into speech, thereby obtaining a translated telephonenumber; and the portion of the information relating to the callcomprises the translated telephone number.
 13. A method according toclaim 11, wherein: the step of determining call information comprisesdetermining name of a person associated with the telephone number fromwhich the call originated; the step of generating the first announcementcomprises translating the name into speech, thereby obtaining atranslated name; and the portion of the information relating to the callcomprises the translated name.
 14. A method according to claim 11,wherein: the step of severing a first connection comprises severing thefirst connection within an SCBus-based patching framework; and the stepof severing a second connection comprises severing the second connectionwithin the SCBus-based patching framework.
 15. A method according toclaim 14, wherein: the step of severing a first connection comprisessevering the first connection in a time division multiplexed bus; andthe step of severing a second connection comprises severing the secondconnection in the time division multiplexed bus.
 16. A method accordingto claim 9, further comprising the following steps performed afterconclusion of the first announcement being provided to the firstconferee and conclusion of the second announcement being provided to theat least one second conferee: restoring the first connection; andrestoring the second connection.
 17. A method according to claim 16,wherein: the step of severing a first connection comprises severing afirst channel in a patching framework that includes a time divisionmultiplexed bus; the step of severing a second connection comprisessevering a second channel in the patching framework; the step ofrestoring the first connection comprises restoring the first channel inthe patching framework; and the step of restoring the second connectioncomprises restoring the second channel in the patching framework.
 18. Amethod according to claim 17, wherein: the step of receiving the audiodata generated by the at least one second conferee comprises receivingthe audio data generated by the at least one second conferee via one ormore audio buffers.
 19. A method according to claim 8, furthercomprising generating the first announcement in response to one or morepredetermined conditions.
 20. A method according to claim 8, furthercomprising generating the first announcement in response to one or morepredetermined conditions relating to an electronic message.
 21. A methodof providing information in a telephone conference between a firstconferee and a second conferee, the method comprising: severing a firstconnection that provides to the first conferee audio data generated bythe second conferee; receiving the audio data generated by the secondconferee via a first alternative connection; mixing the audio datareceived via the first alternative connection with a first announcementto obtain first mixed audio data; providing the first mixed audio datato the first conferee in real time after severing the first connection;and providing audio data generated by the first conferee to the secondconferee in real time after severing the first connection, wherein thefirst announcement is not provided to the second conferee.
 22. A methodof providing information in a telephone conference, the methodcomprising: receiving audio data generated by at least one secondconferee of the telephone conference; mixing the audio data generated bythe at least one second conferee with a first announcement to obtainfirst mixed audio data; providing the first mixed audio data to a firstconferee of the telephone conference in real time during the telephoneconference; and preventing the at least one second conferee from bearingthe first announcement in real time during the conference.
 23. A methodaccording to claim 22, further comprising: severing a first connectionthat provides audio data generated by the at least one second confereeto the first conferee; continuing to provide the first mixed audio datato the first conferee in real time after severing the first connection;and providing audio data generated by the first conferee to the at leastone second conferee in real time after severing the first connection.